Pryor Cashman Partner Avram Morell, a member of the firm's Immigration Group, talked to Law360 about the implications of layoffs in the tech industry for H-1B visa holders.
In "High Stakes Spell Uncertain Future For H-1B Organizing," Avi talks about the scope of the recent layoffs and what they might mean for workers in the U.S. with these visas:
Tech companies globally have laid off more than 146,000 employees since the start of 2022, with more than a third of the layoffs taking place in November alone, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks tech company layoffs based on company memos, press releases and news reports.
While it is unclear how many H-1B workers the layoffs impacted, tech companies are the most common employers for these workers. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Services reported in March that nearly 70 percent of the H-1B petitions it approved in 2021 were for workers in "computer-related occupations."
Many visa holders were not prepared for the layoffs this year, given years of aggressive growth in the tech sector, said Avram Morell, an immigration partner at Pryor Cashman. "Mass layoffs were just not on their radar," he said, adding layoffs are particularly high stakes for H-1B workers, whose ability to legally stay in the U.S. relies on their employment.
"An average U.S. worker gets laid off and then has to worry about finding another job, but does not have to worry about leaving the country, uprooting their whole life at the same time," Morell said. "When an H-1B worker is laid off, they essentially have 60 days from the date of termination of employment to either change to an alternate visa status, find a job or leave the country."
Many of these workers have lived in the U.S. for years, he said, moving to the country as students before securing H-1B roles.
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